Our Changing Lives
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Post-"Time of the Doctor". The last thing Clara wants to deal with on Boxing Day morning is her overprotective father ... except that Dave Oswald has good reasons to be concerned.


Our Changing Lives

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

_I should've known that yesterday wasn't the last of it,_ Clara thought wearily, eyeing her father's distorted face through the peephole in the door of her flat on Boxing Day morning. _But oh God, does it have to be today?_

The night before had been, hands down, the worst Christmas of her life. She had been thoroughly embarrassed by a naked Doctor in front of her family, tricked into leaving him in a crisis – twice – watched him die and come to life again, and spent a nerve-wracking couple of days in Victorian London, hunting Jack the Ripper beside a dour, sarcastic Scot whom she could barely recognize as her Doctor. They'd said goodbye on good terms; though brusque with the Paternoster Gang, contemptuous of the poor overworked detective on the case, and merciless to the killer himself, he had been very kind to her. She had faith that their friendship would survive somehow … but in the meantime, all she wanted to do was curl up under a blanket, watch _Lost in Austen_, eat chocolate and possibly have a good cry.

The last thing she wanted was to deal with loving, pedantic, well-meaning, overprotective David Oswald – but if she didn't let him in, she knew perfectly well that he would stand there in the hallway until she did. This was the man who still e-mailed step-by-step cooking instructions to his twenty-six-year-old, financially independent daughter. If she was a "bossy control freak", as the truth field on Trenzalore had forced her to admit, she got it from no stranger.

But first, she allowed herself the pre-emptive measure of slumping against the wall and groaning into her cupped hands.

"Coming, Dad," she called, and swung open the door.

/

His lecture went pretty much as she had expected. He began with the reasonable observation of "You're a grown woman, Clara" _(thanks for acknowledging that, at least)_, and "I can't prevent you from making your own choices", but from that point on, it steadily deteriorated into "Doesn't this Doctor have a name?"; "Swedish? _Honestly?";_ "Where did you two meet, anyway? What does he do for a living?"; "What happened to that nice young man who works at your school, Mr. Pink, was it?" and, finally, the inevitable, "Whoever this Doctor person is, he does _not_ sound to me like a suitable partner. You should think very carefully before seeing him again."

"Okay, Dad," she replied crossly, a headache building between her eyes. "Whatever you say. And now you've got all that out of your system, why don't you tell me what the council decided about those pipes?"

She knew at once that it was the wrong thing to say. Dave's face, severely handsome even in middle age, darkened into a frown.

"I don't appreciate that tone of yours, young lady. This is your future we're talking about."

"Yes – _my _future."

"About which you cannot be too careful."

She massaged her forehead and glared over her father's shoulder at the Christmas tree, which she had worked so hard to decorate the morning before, and whose twinkling lights now seemed to her like an insult.

"Clara," he said, more gently, leaning forward with his teacup in both hands, "I'm only saying this because I want you to be happy. And the fact of the matter is, you were less so last night than I've ever seen you since … since your mum died."

The brown eyes she had inherited from him were dark with compassion. Why couldn't he have kept on lecturing? It was impossible to argue with him like this.

"You introduce us to a total stranger – the _strangest _stranger I've ever set eyes on, by the way – disappear with him in the kitchen, come back to tell us he walked out on you, and sit there with us all evening with a look on your face as if you'd just been widowed. The way you reacted to your Gran … And then you grab a Christmas cracker, run outside again absolutely glowing_, _and come back again … extinguished. Just the way you look today. In all honesty, it frightens me."

Clara thought back to the reflection she'd seen in the mirror, staggering back into her flat at five in the morning. Pale skin, purple shadows under her eyes, red marks on her waist from where Jenny's borrowed corset had cut too tightly. _Extinguished_. The literature teacher in her approved coolly of his choice in words.

"Oh, Dad … "

The urge to tell him the truth made her headache pound like a hammer. He didn't deserve to be lied to. But how could he possibly believe her, this respectable accountant who thought only crackpots believed in aliens? Any touch of whimsy or creativity in him had died with his wife eleven years ago, and marrying Linda had buried them even deeper. He would think she was crazy. Hell, sometimes _she _thought she was crazy.

How much of the truth would he understand?

"He didn't really want to come here yesterday," she said, tracing circles in the tea with her biscotto and avoiding her father's eyes. "You know how Linda gets about me being single – no offense to your wife, but she makes me want to strangle her, and that's not very comfortable at Christmas. So I called in a favor, basically forced the Doctor to pretend to be my boyfriend. And he didn't like that. At all." _You can't keep using the TARDIS like this. Missed birthdays, restaurant bookings, and why can't you just learn to use iPlayer? _

"You mean showing up naked was his way of getting back at you?" Dave frowned. "Some kind of silly prank?"

"Something like that." She smiled ruefully. "He's got a weird sense of humor. Mum would've liked him. Remember when she sent that Gorillagram on your fortieth birthday?"

"At least a gorilla costume _covers up, _if you know what I mean," Dave grumbled, but not without the echo of a grin.

"Well, we had a row … " _I am furious with you! – Well, I'm not even talking to you! _"He left me. When I heard his TAR – his car outside, I thought he was coming back … but it was just this friend of his." _He shouldn't die alone. Go to him. _"Coming to pick up something he forgot."

She covered her eyes, but could not stop the images from coming back. His frail old hands unable to pull a Christmas cracker; the Time Lords showering him in golden light; his ridiculous "last meal" of fish fingers and custard; his fingertips against the phantom face of a woman named Amelia she'd never heard of. His bow tie falling softly to the floor.

_No, no, please don't change … _

"You remember how Gran said she wanted everything to stop? How when she first fell in love with Granddad, she wanted nothing to change, ever again?"

Dave nodded soberly. His father's death was only a vague childhood memory to him, his life a fascinating story around the dinner table. But to Lily Oswald, née Arwell, her beloved Matthew's presence was as vivid in her mind as always, and would never fade away.

"But people have to change," Clara continued, hearing her voice tremble and break despite herself. "They can't help it. Everything changes. Only … only I don't always have to _like _it, Dad, now do I?"

She choked out a laugh at her own childish absurdity as Dave left his chair and gathered her into his arms. He rocked her back and forth, like a boat on the waves, just as he had done when she was a little girl – and once, when she was older, three nights after her mother's funeral. His arms were heavy around her, awkward; touch had never been natural to him as it was to some people, and it was a measure of his deep love for Ellie and Clara that he had learned how to give hugs at all.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm really sorry."

"No, you're not," she sobbed into his cable-knit sweater. "You think I'm well shot of him."

"Well, yes. From a practical point of view. But from an emotional point of view, does that mean I can't be sorry?"

"Oh, Dad." She wiped her eyes and shook her head at him. "Thank God _you _never change."

He kissed her ceremoniously on the forehead, like a priest bestowing a blessing. "Warn me if I do."

She disappeared into her shoebox of a bathroom, where a Kleenex box, a washcloth and a bag of makeup stood ready for some necessary repair work. Yesterday's makeup combined with a fit of crying had reduced her eyes to a truly appalling state, and part of being a control freak was making sure her outside matched her inside. She was feeling slightly better now; if she looked the part, she might feel it even more. Besides, her poor Dad had endured enough emotion for the day. She emerged with a smile and a swept-up hairdo, ready to have what she had been denied so thoroughly last night: some normal, happy hours with her family.

Sure enough, he had switched on the news while she was gone.

"Can you believe this mess in the Ukraine?" He shook the remote indignantly at the television. "What in the world does Putin think he's doing?"

"I'm sure you'd give him a piece of your mind if he was here," said Clara. "More tea?"

Wth a quiet glow of love at the bottom of her heart, and a wry smile on her face, she watched Dave scold politicians and re-order the world to his liking, not unlike a more powerful, but equally pigheaded man she knew. Her father couldn't save the world, let alone the universe, but he was here for her – and in that moment, that was all she needed.


End file.
